PS4, Xbox 720 to have Avatar-style graphics

Mike Luttrell, 12th September 2012

If you thought the graphics in the movie Avatar were good, you won't be disappointed in the next console generation.
According to the co-founder of Geometrics, a company specializing in middleware for video games like Battlefield and Need for Speed, the next iteration of the Xbox and Playstation will have "Avatar quality" visual effects.

The 2009 James Cameron flick has become the new benchmark for computer-generated graphics. So when someone says that a new platform's graphics will be comparable to Avatar, what he's really saying is the graphics will be on par with the best that the industry has created.

Geometrics's middleware engine, Enlighten, is already being prepped for the next generation. In an interview with Cinemablend.com, the company's co-founder Dr. Chris Dolan said, "You can imagine that on next generation hardware Enlighten runs without touching the sides! We have already proved this out in our GPU implementation, developed in collaboration with NVIDIA, which is an order of magnitude faster than current consoles."

"I am confident that the lighting itself could get close to Avatar quality. Then the question moves onto other aspects of content creation. Is that level of modeling detail feasible, and will the animation, physics, and AI all be equally plausible," he added.

Recent leaks about the new Xbox show that the console will have "Kinect v2" built directly into the console, so there will be no need for an extra peripheral.

Among the enhancements referenced are the ability to track four players simultaneously, stronger integration with other devices like the PC and Windows Phone, and just all-around more powerful performance.

Another interesting thing mentioned in the leak is a project Microsoft is reportedly working on, called Kinect Glasses, which has hints of Google's Project Glass in it.

As for the PS4, there have been far fewer leads about what the console will offer, leading many to believe that the PS4 will not come out for at least a year after the Xbox 720 is released (which would make sense considering the Xbox 360 launched the year before the PS3).